They claim that the condition of the shelters has deteriorated in general in the suburbs after these areas have come under the Chennai corporation.

 

“Earlier, the local body officials used to maintain these shelters and they were repaired regularly. After these shelters went under the maintenance of the city corporation, not much attention has been paid. To add to our woes, the lack of an elected local body has made us totally helpless as there is no one to complain to,” said a resident of Narayanapuram. 

Since several school and college going children use these bus shelters to commute to the city and back, they are forced to bear the brunt of the heat during summer.

 

Every day, school students who need to board the bus from the Pallikaranai school stop, need to stand in sun for nearly 30 minutes. “The bus shelter was constructed many years ago and it never was repaired,” R Kumar, a student who added that the situation is worse in the evenings as they are already tired and on top of that, they need to stand under the sun for boarding MTC buses.

The situation is worse at the Narayanapuram bus stop in Pallikaranai. College students are forced to stand on the road for boarding the bus as they do not have any kind of shelter. 

Meena, a college student from Narayanapuram said, “It will be good if the officials take steps to construct a small shed here so that we can avoid the direct sunlight. Even if it rains suddenly we have no other go than to get wet.”

When contacted, a highway official said on condition of anonymity that since the shelters were maintained by the corporation, they had no role to play. However, civic body officials claimed that they were in the process of streamlining shelters in the newly added areas and that they would be done soon.